


if it's enough

by obsessivelymoody



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009, M/M, Skype
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 18:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivelymoody/pseuds/obsessivelymoody
Summary: His stomach clenches and he feels as if he may be sick with joy. He’s quite sure there is no way he’s getting much sleep before work tomorrow, and that there’s no way this terrifying, but buzzing thrill is leaving him until he can get back onto Skype with Phil.Or, Dan and Phil and Skype in 2009.





	if it's enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [danhedonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/danhedonia/gifts).



> Prompt: 2009 Skype calls from before they met in person. It can just be one specific Skype call or a series of Skype calls (if it’s just one, preferably the first Skype call, but not necessarily). Flirty/raunchy phil is an absolute must and nervous bashful dan is also an absolute must. Bonus point for Skype smut, but by no means a requirement.
> 
> Huge thanks to [schiefergrau](http://schiefergrau.tumblr.com/) for being an amazing beta reader <3

_so video call :p_  
_on skype?_

Dan’s heart races. He figures that it shouldn’t be, that he’s ridiculous for the tightening in his chest and the spike of excited panic that takes his breath away, but he can’t help himself. 

His hands shake a bit as he types out a quick _ok ^-^_ , and then a _give me 5mins_. Phil’s reply comes quick, and he runs to the bathroom. 

He’s thankful he did his hair this morning, so it only takes him a few moments to try to get it to lay in the right places. The t-shirt he’s wearing is black and plain. Briefly Dan wonders if he should change, but he’s not sure what’s clean or dirty, and he thinks five minutes isn’t enough time to decide what from his wardrobe would impress Phil the most. He smooths down his shirt, frantically looking around the bathroom before picking up his toothbrush. He brushes his teeth because—well, he’s panicking a bit and thinks that’s only polite. It can’t hurt, he supposes. 

Dan bolts back into his room, firmly closing the door behind him. He pulls up Skype, noting the pop-up that comes almost instantly, telling him that amazingphil is online. 

He quickly fixes up his hair again, noticing the way it fluffed up weirdly during the journey from the bathroom back to his room. He barely manages to get it flat before the Skype jingle sounds. Dan’s hands shake as he accepts the call from Phil. 

The seconds where his screen stays black are agonizing. He wonders if Phil can see him already, if he’s judging the plain brown wall behind him or is suddenly repulsed by the way Dan looks when he’s not being helped by careful angles and lighting. He wonders if maybe Phil isn’t there at all, and this is all an elaborate prank to show how gullible he is, or just to make fun of him for...for being like _that_. He wonders if maybe this really is one of those perverted serial killer situations, and that Dan’s going to have to figure out some kind of grand lie for why he had to destroy his computer so he can’t be tracked. He wonders—and Dan thinks that maybe this would hurt the most, if it be the case—if maybe Phil’s just been leading him on the whole time. Playing friends with one of his fans, making him feel like they could be on the same playing field, almost like equals, almost like Dan was hardly ever a fan at all and that Phil actually feels a lot of the same things as him and shares a lot of the same opinions, only to rip it all out from under him, to truly let Dan know that he’s never going to be anything but a faceless, nameless, meaningless fan to him. 

His thoughts twist into something else as the screen loads and Phil is in front of him. 

Phil is in front of him. Amazing _fucking_ Phil. On his laptop. Actually wanting to chat. On Skype. Dan feels like he can barely breathe. 

But no. No, he can’t let that show. He can’t let Phil know he’s actually having a fangirl moment. He can’t remind him that Dan is just a fan after all. 

“Hey, Dan!” Phil smiles, raising his hand in a wave before adjusting his fringe. 

_God he’s so smooth already what the fuck am I supposed to do now?_

“Hey, Phil.” He smiles back. 

“So how are you?” 

*

It starts off awkward. An odd mix of small talk and extensions of conversations they’ve had going on and off for the last while. It’s uncomfortable, but not a bad kind of uncomfortable, just...weird. Different to texts and twitter DMs and comment threads. It terrifies and annoys the hell out of Dan. They’ve already talked for a while, long enough for Phil to make the offer of a Skype call, and yet they can’t seem to pick up completely where they left off. And it’s harder for Dan to pretend he’s cooler than he is. That he’s worth the time and attention of AmazingPhil instead of just being some nerdy kid from Wokingham. Or just some other fan.

It makes Dan’s heart crawl up into his throat and fills him with an almost unbearable panic. It makes him feel like at any second something could ruin this thing he has with Phil. This thing that he probably has too many hopes and fantasies about. This thing that is completely undefined but makes his heart do something funny in his chest. Dan knows he’s being silly about it all, and that the only reason he’s still talking to Phil is because it’s easy for him to play it cool through a keyboard. 

But suddenly it’s hours later and they’re still talking. And Phil’s still laughing at Dan’s jokes, still listening to him ramble on about whatever topic they’ve moved onto, still asking him more questions. 

And Dan feels better. Calmer, like he can actually do this, like maybe Phil actually wants to be his friend. 

“Oh, we’ve been talking for ages,” Phil says when the next natural lull in conversation comes. 

“Huh, I guess we have,” Dan says, pretending as if he hadn’t been obsessively keeping his eye on the clock through the whole call and hadn’t noticed them passing the two and a half hour mark a few minutes ago. The panic comes back, and Dan hopes it isn’t showing on his face. He’s done so well at keeping his expression neutral when it needs to be. “Sorry, I’m probably keeping you from something important.” 

“No, actually, I really enjoy talking to you. This is easier than texting. And I, um, get to see your face too.” 

_Oh_. 

“I just don’t want to keep you from anything. Or from sleeping.” 

“No, uh—” Dan’s voice cracks and he feels all the blood drain from his face, running cold through the rest of his body. He thinks the pause he takes before continuing is too long to be natural. “But if you need to go, I get it. I guess I should probably get to bed now. Got work tomorrow and all.” 

“Ah work. Right.” Phil smiles at him, and Dan wonders if he’s cocked it all up now, between the voice crack and giving reason for leaving. He has to have lost all of whatever made Phil want to continue talking to him in the first place by now. “That’s important. Being adult and responsible and the lot.” 

“It’s just ASDA,” Dan shrugs. 

“It’s a real job, though,” he replies. “I’ll let you go anyway. We can pick up where we left off next time.” 

_Next time?_

“Okay,” he says, his insides twisting with a terrified giddiness. “It was great to talk with you, Phil. Like, face to face. So, I’ll talk to you later then?” 

“Yes,” Phil says. “Definitely. Just let me know when the right time to call you is. I don’t want to miss you every time I’m online.” 

“Sure.” Dan’s heart races. 

“Bye Dan!” He smiles and raises his hand in a half wave staring at it for a second before quickly dropping it. 

“Bye Phil. Talk to you later.” 

When the call ends, Dan sits back, letting out a deep breath. 

So Phil wants to keep talking to him. Like, with his face and everything. Fuck. His stomach clenches and he feels as if he may be sick with joy. He’s quite sure there is no way he’s getting much sleep before work tomorrow, and that there’s no way this terrifying, but buzzing thrill is leaving him until he can get back onto Skype with Phil.

Dan hopes that his goodbye was good enough for him. 

*

“Can I ask you something weird?” 

Dan blames his comfort for this. He blames the sweet, docile embrace of quarter after two in the morning, and the way Phil sleepily regards him. He blames the fact they’ve been skyping nearly every day for the last few weeks for this, but his head is spinning and he thinks that maybe he should just say it, his cool and collected act be damned. 

“Okay,” Phil sounds hesitant, almost unsure of what Dan could say. 

“Do you, er,” he stops himself, hesitant. He's had a day, really. Well, most of his days are _days_ lately. Always ending in some kind of fight with his parents and often his brother. Every shift at work feels like he’s toeing the line to being fired again, and today felt like no exception to anyof those things. It feels like he’s met the end of his rope, and he feels as if he’ll drive himself mad keeping it in right now because—well, his mind likes to wander at two in the morning. 

“Do you ever feel like you’ve gotten on like, the wrong life train or something? Like you got on at the wrong stop, at the wrong time, and now you’re just kind of stuck there, lost?” The words come out fast, coated in fear. 

“Um,” Phil pauses, looking down. He sounds unsure in a way Dan hasn’t heard before, and he wonders if he’s just fucked it all up. “Yeah, actually. I guess I hadn’t put it into words like that before.” 

He feels almost instantly more at ease, knowing that someone like Phil, with two degrees and a budding youtube career, understands what he means. He opens his mouth to ask what exactly Phil relates to but Phil beats him to it. 

“Is this about your gap year?” he asks. 

“A bit, yeah,” Dan admits. “I guess I just...don’t really know what I’m doing. But I’ll figure it out. Soon I reckon.” 

It’s a bit of a lie. Dan’s far from figuring anything out; he just wants to know more about Phil. 

“What did you mean by getting what I said,” he asks. “Like understanding but not in those words before?” 

“Oh, um,” Phil wrings his hands just barely out of the webcam’s sight. 

“Sorry!” He rushes to say. “If you don’t want to talk about it. You don’t, like, need to.” 

“It’s okay. Maybe I should.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Phil takes in a breath.

“I don’t think I know what I’m doing at all. Like, with a job or my love life, or even just where I’m living.” 

Dan’s shocked. Shocked that Phil could possibly feel those things when he’s done uni and is _that guy_ on youtube. Or when he says nice things about Dan and his face so casually, like hesitation wasn’t even an option. It makes Dan feel bad for lying, for steering the conversation onto Phil, but he drinks it all in. This is Phil, just Phil, and there’s a small, selfish part of him that relishes in the information, that feeds off the trust Phil’s given him. As he talks about the way his dad looks at him sometimes, mostly after his mum’s coddled him with food from scratch or when he leaves his room for the first time after eleven in the morning. Or as he tells him he maybe should have taken a job he was offered last year. Or moved out into the city. 

He feels silly, thinking that Phil must have had everything together, that he must not feel anything close to what Dan feels. It’s a comfort, to know that they’re kind of on the same page there. To know that Phil will listen first, even if he has something to say.

In the end, a few hours later when the sun is nearly set to rise and both of them are yawning more than speaking, Phil tells him he’s glad they talked. 

“Me too,” Dan says quietly. “Thanks for understanding.”

“Yeah, you too,” he replies with a yawn. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

“Mm,” he hums, matching Phil with another yawn. 

“Wish you were here,” Phil says softly, sounding almost asleep. Dan feels his stomach drop. “This was nice, and falling asleep with you after—that would be nicer.”

There Phil goes, flirting in that unabashed way. Dan tells himself it’s only because he’s tired, because he just opened up to him and maybe it’s easier to be with someone right after that. Maybe that’s why people tell secrets when they sleep over at each other’s houses. (But maybe Dan’s trying too hard to rationalize it. To put himself into denial when Phil flirts). 

“Maybe we can fall asleep together,” Dan suggests. “Keep the call open. Whoever wakes up first can end it.” 

Phil raises his eyebrows. “Really?” 

“Why not?” Dan shrugs, silently hoping Phil doesn’t think he’s some kind of freak now. 

“Okay.” He smiles sleepily, setting his laptop to the side and laying down so his head and neck are the only thing Dan can see. “Okay, I like that idea. Night Dan.” 

He yawns. “G’night Phil.” 

*

Dan pushes rice around his plate, his face resting against his right hand. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he itches to pull it out. 

His mum is droning on about something that happened at work, and he waits for a pause in conversation before asking to be excused. 

“Daniel, we never sit down and have dinner like this. The least you can do is stay until we’re all done.” Mum says, clearly already exasperated with his presence. 

Dan sighs, leaning back in his chair. He pulls his phone out under the table, barely managing to type in the password before Adrian chimes in. 

“He probably just wants to go talk to his _boyfriend_ some more.” 

Dan recognizes the tone. He’s trying to rile him up in that little brother way, trying to get him to freak out so their parents yell at him and find another way to loathe him. 

“Shut up, you little brat.” Dan hisses despite himself. “And I don’t have a boyfriend.” 

“Daniel, don’t talk to your brother like that,” his dad says. “We’re eating, at least try to have a bit of respect for that.” 

“Don’t you, Dan? Who’s the guy you talk to all the time then?” Adrian presses. 

_For fuck sakes_. 

“Shut the fuck up—”

“Daniel. Stop it.” His mum sounds tired, like she barely even wants to deal with him anymore. “Adrian, stop bothering your brother.” 

There’s a long pause before his mum looks over at him. “So who have you been talking to then, Daniel?”

He wants to die, here and now. 

“God, mum, nothing. No one. Just a mate of mine.” He pushes more food around his plate. “It doesn’t matter.” 

“Alright, if you want to be that dramatic about it.” 

He sighs loudly. Dan’s not sure how much more of this he can take. He thinks if someone where to stab him it would be less painful than having this conversation. “Can I be excused now? Please?” 

“Fine.” His mum says, defeated. “God forbid we have a nice family meal once in a while.” 

Dan rolls his eyes when he gets up from the table, turning his phone over to unlock it again as he drops his plate off in the kitchen. He smiles at the texts from Phil, faintly hearing his brother start to argue with their parents about Dan leaving in the background. 

*

It’s past midnight when Dan adjusts the position of his laptop on his stomach, curling further into his sheets as Phil tells him some kind of funny anecdote about him and his brother when they were little. 

Dan laughs when Phil’s done.

“You sound like such a cute child. Cute, but a little weird.” 

“That’s me,” Phil says. “And hey! Am I not cute now?” 

He pulls an undeniably adorable pout and Dan laughs again, this time a little nervously. He likes Phil’s little flirts. They’re thrilling and make him feel like maybe Phil likes him back in the same way Dan does. But it’s the maybe of it all he’s constantly stuck on. They don’t talk about that stuff together. Phil just flirts and Dan flirts back, albeit apprehensive and wishing for more, but settling for what they have now. 

“Of course you are,” Dan says, feeling a little burst of joy at the way Phil’s face lights up. “But you were probably a cuter kid.” 

“I wasn’t. I had like, bright orange hair. It was awful.” 

“No way!” he says, giggling at the idea. He files the detail away, making sure he’s going to remember it later. Just in case. “Bet you were still the cutest kid. I love gingers.” 

“Yeah? Too bad I’m too emo for that now.” 

He scoffs. “It’s not just the hair, Phil. The freckles. The freckles matter so much.” 

“I’ve got freckles!” Phil says, poking his arm towards his webcam. 

“Do you?” he asks, already knowing the answer. As if he hadn’t picked up on them ages ago. 

“They probably don’t show up very well on my webcam...oh well,” he leans back from the camera. “I guess you’ll have to see them in person.” 

“Yeah,” Dan says, voice sounding quiet in his own ears. “In person.”

“Is it weird that I've always wanted to connect them all, just to see what kind of pattern they’d make?” Phil asks, almost as if Dan hadn’t spoken. 

“No,” he says, louder than before. “Well, yes. But I think that’s a very _you_ thing to want.” 

Phil hums. There’s a moment of utter silence between them, where all Dan can hear is the rain pounding against his window. 

“I’d reckon it’d be hard to get your back and shoulders, though.” Dan continues. “You’d need some help with that.” 

“Yeah,” he says absently. “Yeah, I reckon I would. But from who? You?” 

He says it so quickly that Dan almost doesn’t hear him. “Me?” 

“If you want to,” he says, and suddenly Dan’s picturing it. Phil with his shirt off, laying on his side in his bed, Dan laying the same way behind him, a marker poised against the pale skin on his back. He watches imaginary Dan draw on Phil, lets himself watch them lean their faces closer and closer and closer until he pushes the scene away, focusing on what real Phil is saying to him right now. 

“You should come. To visit me, I mean,” Phil says. “My parents are, um, going away in the third week of October.” 

Oh. That’s new. They’d talked about meeting each other before, but never with actual dates, and never in this tone from Phil that seems to say this is all serious. It makes Dan’s heart thump loudly in his chest, so loud it feels like it rivals the rain beating down outside. 

“I don’t know Phil, might need to build an ark first with all this rain here,” he jokes. 

Phil pouts. “Better start building now then, or you won’t get here in time.” 

His heartbeat skips in his chest. Phil really wants him to come. Phil...actually wants to meet him. In person. At his house. 

“When do you think?” Dan asks. “I should come, I mean.” 

“Um,” Phil perks up, clicking around on his computer. “The...nineteenth? Until...the twenty-first? What do you reckon?” 

“That’s, uh, three days?” Dan pulls up the train’s booking site, entering in the days. It’s not exactly cheap for him, but he can afford it. And it’s not like he wouldn’t do it anyway if they were five times as expensive. 

“I could—I could do it,” he says. “I could.” 

“Really?” Phil sounds like he can hardly believe him. He clicks back onto Skype and the light in Phil’s eyes makes his chest hurt. “You would?” 

“Yeah, I—” Dan laughs a little. “I really want to. I’d love to meet you in person.” 

He can feel his cheeks heat up, so he looks down, hoping Phil won’t notice. 

“Me too. Can you buy them, like now?” He laughs, his tongue poking out between his teeth endearingly. 

“I want to,” Dan says. “I really, really want to but I should wait until morning at least.” 

What he doesn’t say is that this is the most terrifying, but exhilarating decision he’s made in ages, and that he’s fairly certain he’s going to buy those tickets as soon as he wakes up tomorrow. But there’s something a bit scary about travelling three hours to an unfamiliar city to meet someone you met online, and then stay with them for three days. Phil could be some kind of cannibal. Or something worse. Something more real and made up of all those warnings everyone on the internet’s heard a million times. He doesn’t even want to think about how his family would react. No, he needs to think. And properly, because this is big and a bit scary. Even if he would call him his best friend. Even if he wants to see if there could be anything more between them. 

“Okay,” Phil says quietly. Neither of them move to say anything then, and Dan thinks he can almost feel an odd, melancholic feeling emanating from his laptop. And it feels horrible. 

“Hey,” he says gently. “Phil. I really want to meet you. Like, with every cell in me. I just kind of don’t want to get up and hunt for my card.” 

Phil laughs, at least, even though Dan knows he probably didn’t help much.

“Just hurry up. I really need someone to help me connect my back freckles.” 

*

“So I ordered some tickets and they’re coming in the mail soon, if you could please look out for them. I don’t want them to get lost.” Dan says passively, walking into the kitchen where his parents are quietly conversing as his mum makes dinner. He grabs a glass out of the cupboard and pours himself some water. 

His father makes a half-hearted grunting noise, which Dan takes as confirmation that he was at least somewhat heard. He takes a sip of his water and turns around, making his way back up to his room. 

“Tickets?” His mum asks. Dan freezes two steps from the door. “For what?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Does it really matter, Mum?”

“Yes Daniel, forgive me for showing some interest in your life.” Dan rolls his eyes again. 

“They’re just train tickets, Mum,” Dan says, taking a step forward. 

“Train tickets where?” 

He sighs, stopping in the threshold. 

He does _not_ want to have this conversation right now. Or ever, really. Regret washes over him. Why the fuck did he have to bring them up? 

“Manchester,” he mumbles. 

“Where?” His dad asks, clearly invested in the conversation now. _Fuck sakes_.

“Manchester,” Dan says louder. 

“What on earth is in Manchester?” His mum asks. 

Panic swirls in his stomach. He can’t tell his parents about Phil. They’d never let him go. They’d—god, he doesn’t even want to imagine the looks on their faces if they knew even half of the story. It would be far from approval, far from acceptance. He’s sure of it. The water in Dan’s hand suddenly feels a lot heavier than when he poured it. 

“Daniel?” 

His dad’s voice makes his stomach knot even tighter, drawing him out of his head. 

_Fuck fuck fuck_. He has to lie. He has no other choice. 

“Um, uni,” he blurts, silently cursing his lack of composure. “I want to check out the uni.” 

“Oh, lovely,” his mum says. “For how long? Just a day? Are you going alone?”

Panic prickles electrically through his body. _Dan you fucking idiot_.

“God, Mum,” Dan says tersely. “Is this twenty questions or something?”

“She’s right to ask, Daniel.” There’s a stern edge to his dad’s tone. “Can you turn around, please?”

He does as he’s told, twisting to see his mum leaning against the kitchen counter and his dad sat at the little table a few steps from where Dan’s standing. 

“Well?” His mum prompts, raising her eyebrows. 

He clenches his toes against the cold tile, wishing away the tension in his chest, wishing he could go back in time and slap past Dan for even thinking this was a sane idea. 

“I’ll be leaving on the nineteenth and coming back on the twenty-first,” his breath catches in his chest, and he hopes neither of his parents notice as he carries on, his the words coming out of his mouth disconnected from the thoughts running a million miles an hour in his mind. “And I’ll be with a mate. He lives there. In Manchester.”

 _Oh fuck_. Dan _certainly_ hadn’t meant to say that. 

His mum looks confused. “Since when do you have a mate who lives in Manchester?”

Her tone is purely conversational, but he wants to scream. 

“Um, for a while?” Dan prays that the utter horror swimming through him isn’t showing on his face. 

“Really.” 

“Yes,” he says immediately. “Haven’t I answered all your questions?” 

“You have—” 

“Is that all then?” he adds coldly, before either of his parents can get a word out. His mum narrows her eyes. He can see his dad give him a curious look out of the corner of his eye. 

It feels like hours before his mum speaks again. He scowls, furrowing his brows as his both of parents regard him, seemingly trying to set him on fire with their eyes. 

“Yes Daniel,” she sighs and turns back to the food on the stove. “You know, you don’t always have to make everything so difficult. It’s like pulling teeth.” 

“Don’t I?” Dan challenges under his breath as he turns away, not waiting for his dad to say anything or to see if they heard him. 

He races through the dining room and up the stairs, unable to succumb to any feeling of relief until he’s back in his bedroom, the door shut firmly behind him. 

“You absolute fucking moron,” he says to himself, placing the glass of water still in his grasp on his nightstand. 

He sits on his bed, pulling his phone out of his pocket, opening up twitter. 

_i have verbal diahorrea. amputate my face plz, or pass me some masking tape._

Dan hits send on the tweet, tossing his phone to the side on his bed. He lays back, letting out a small groan and covering his face with his hands. 

His head feels full of static. It’s an inescapable noise, like someone’s tied him to a chair in front of the telly with the volume turned to maximum, black and white pixels dancing across the screen. 

Only, Dan wishes it’s just white noise. Anything would be better than the overwhelming phantom pressure in his head and the ugly, crude twist to the voice in his mind. 

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, willing away the cloud in his head, when a soft buzz sounds from the sheets next to him. 

He contemplates ignoring it, but the itching in his palms at the thought of it being _Phil_ he’s ignoring makes him roll onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow as he picks up his phone. 

It’s Phil. Phil, the only person who seems to give a fuck about him when no one else does. 

_u ok?_  
_Hope you didnt say anything too scandalous O.o_

And despite everything, despite the noise in his head and the disappointment he can see in his dad’s eyes and the sigh he can so clearly hear coming from his mum, or the looks from his mates, Dan smiles. He doesn’t feel better, but it’s a moment of softness, where the harsh edges in his mind are blurred because he knows Phil cares at least a little bit, and that he’ll listen, maybe even try to make Dan laugh. 

He doesn’t know what _they_ are, or if Phil’s heart races in the same way Dan’s does when they talk, but Phil’s at least his friend, and at least willing to be his light in the dark. 

*

“I still can’t believe you got them so fast. You only bought them yesterday!” 

“I know,” Dan replies, looking down at his keyboard to hide his grin. “Only eleven days now.” 

“Sounds like ages.” There’s a pause, and Dan looks up again, a spike of fear blooming in his chest. Phil’s looking away from his computer, his bottom lip between his teeth and eyes trained on something to the bottom left of Dan’s view. The fear clenches icily in his chest. 

_God, what if he’s changed his mind? What if he’s realised how much of an idiot I am and now he wants nothing to do with me? What if—_

“I’d rather have you here now,” Phil says softly, glancing back at Dan. He’s smirking a little, still biting his lip. 

Relief breaks through the ice in his chest, swiftly replaced by a different kind of fear, coloured with uncertainty. There’s another beat before Dan opens his mouth again, feeling boldness swirl with the nerves in his stomach. 

“What? Can’t wait?” Dan challenges, hoping his laptop’s mic can’t pick up the way his voice shakes, or the breathless lit at the end. 

The terror is intoxicating. Dan feels truly drunk on it, almost unable to hold himself back from speaking the thoughts running through his mind but still petrified at the idea of Phil changing his mind. Or not feeling the same way. 

“No,” he replies, smiling crookedly. “How can I? Can you?” 

“No. I can’t.” Dan knows he sounds breathless now. The nerves in his stomach are eating him from the inside out, and he reaches up to adjust his fringe, giving his shaking fingers something to do. 

“Well actually,” he watches Phil fix his own fringe now. _This is it. This is how he’s going to break it to me._

“I need to get fit before you come. Eleven days is enough time to grow some abs right?” 

He feels like cold water has been poured down the back of his shirt as relief once again washes over him. He briefly wonders if the emotional whiplash he’s giving himself is worth it, rather than assuming Phil’s feelings. 

_Don’t be daft_ , he thinks as he lets out a laugh at Phil’s comment. _Assumptions are just going to bring you pain. For all you know Phil could be like this with all his friends_.

He shakes his head at himself a little, still smiling at Phil as he watches him fix his fringe again. Assumptions aren’t smart, but Dan thinks playing back to Phil’s comments wouldn’t hurt anyone. 

“You look great the way you are anyway,” Dan blurts. “Being fit or not wouldn’t change how I feel about you.” 

Dan swears that he sees Phil’s eyes widen for a second before the smirk comes back. “Oh yeah?” 

He digs his nails into his thigh through his joggers, racking his brain for a witty reply before Phil speaks again. 

“How d’you feel about me, Dan?” 

Blood rushes into his cheeks, and he hopes Phil doesn’t notice through the grainy webcam as he scoffs, rolling his eyes. He says the safest thing he can think of, the only real label they’ve put on each other. “You’re my best friend. No question.” 

“Right, so as my best friend, be honest with me,” Dan watches with a terrified curiosity as Phil grasps his t-shirt and pulls it over his head, chucking it off to the side somewhere. “How much Wii Fit will it take in the next eleven days to give me abs? Or, uh, like, what do you think?” 

It’s stupid. It’s stupid and an overreaction because it’s not like Dan hasn’t seen Phil like this before, and not like it hasn’t gone the other way around either. Hell, even further than just a naked torso from Dan. 

So Dan does not want to tell Phil what he actually thinks. He doesn’t want to tell Phil how badly he wants to run his hands through the bit of hair on his chest he’s got his eyes trained on, or how badly he just wants to know what it feels like to smooth his hand over a broader, flatter chest like his own, just to know how it _makes_ him feel outside of a fantasy. He doesn’t want to tell Phil how much he wants to leave his mark across the pale expanse of skin on the screen in front of him. He definitely doesn’t want to tell him how just looking at him makes him twitch in his pants.

And he doesn’t. (In the back of his mind, he hopes that one day he can. Easily, with confidence and without even the slightest hesitation). 

“So we’re best friends who take our shirts off for each other?” Dan jokes. He regrets it instantly, watching Phil angle his laptop and cross his arms over his chest. 

“I—sorry. Sorry.” His voice is quiet, eyes cast downward, away from Dan. 

“God, I’ve fucked this up haven’t I?” Dan mumbles. He clears his throat, his cheeks burning. “It’s not like—it’s not like I haven’t seen you—or like, that we haven’t seen each other—without your shirt on. I just—bad joke. I shouldn’t have said that. I fucked everything up didn’t I? I’m sorry, I—” 

It’s a split second decision, and a stupid one at that. But Dan reaches down and pulls off his own shirt, tossing it to the side and quickly adjusting his mussed hair. 

He feels odd for a moment, like he’s just gotten completely naked. But it’s nothing Phil hasn’t seen before. Hell, nothing the fucking internet hasn’t seen before. But somehow, this feels like he’s crossed the intimacy line. 

“Now we’re even,” Dan says, feeling redder than a tomato. 

Phil laughs. “We’re stupid. So stupid.” 

“Erm, yeah,” he agrees, laughing along with Phil. “Totally.” 

“And you’re—you’re just very pretty,” Phil says, pressing his lips together. Dan thinks he can see amusement in his eyes. 

He his chest flutters and—embarrassingly—his cock twitches in his pants again. “‘M not.” 

“You are though,” Dan continues boldly before Phil can say anything. “You’re so pretty. I mean it when I say nothing about you needs to change.” 

Surely he’s fucked it all up now. Surely this is when Phil tells him he’s uncomfortable, that he’s better off returning the train tickets and that this was all a mistake. 

“ _Dan_ ,” Phil whines. “Stop, you’re embarrassing me.” 

Phil covers his face with his hands, but Dan can see him smiling through his fingers. 

“To who? Yourself?” 

“Ugh, Dan you know what I mean!” Phil rolls his eyes at him. “Besides, you’re like, proper pretty.” 

Dan wonders how far he can take this. He’s terrified of messing it all up but...Phil isn’t exactly _stopping_ him. 

“Am I?” 

“Yeah,” his voice is lower, huskier than before. “Your eyes. And your lips. Just...everything. You’re pretty.” 

Dan hates how it’s enough to go straight to his cock. He hates how his heart pounds in his chest because surely Phil’s just messing about. Just being nice to him. Because there are better guys to like in that way. Because it’s not good to make assumptions that will most likely end in painful disappointment. 

“Now you’re the one embarrassing me,” Dan says bashfully, pressing the heel of his hand into his cock out of shot. He hopes Phil’s gaze wasn’t following the slight twist of his arm and shoulder, or the way his arm is now slightly awkwardly pressed into his torso. He thinks this would be much easier to pass off with a shirt on. 

“Good,” Phil replies in the same low tone. “It is true, Dan. I’ve always thought so.” 

“Phil—I,” he sputters. 

“We’re about to hit the four-hour mark,” Phil interrupts, rather suddenly. “Maybe we should go to bed. Gotta wake up and do all those sit-ups tomorrow.” 

There’s a pang of sadness in his chest, but also a bit of relief. His hand’s still on his cock, and Phil isn’t helping the situation at all. Worry floods into his thoughts, but Dan clings onto the compliments, taking them as a rational sign that Phil at least still wants to keep him around. 

“Seriously Phil, you don’t need to do any sit-ups.” 

He shrugs. “You should uh, take care of yourself anyway.”

“What?” Confusion colours his tone until Phil does some kind of double wink, raising his eyebrows. _Oh fuck_. 

“God, was that supposed to be a _wink_? You’re hopeless Phil.” Dan laughs, hoping it detracts from what he thinks Phil was implying he’s aware of. 

“Shut up! I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah?” 

“Yeah, Phil. Night.” 

“Night.” 

It takes a few moments for Dan to push the laptop off of him, to process how quickly those last minutes went by. He’s surprised he hasn’t gone into cardiac arrest at this point. 

Phil was—god, he barely even knows what Phil was, except a lot. A lot in a very good way. In fact, good enough to still be a bit evident in the slight hardness Dan can still feel through his trackies. And well—Dan may as well take care of himself, per Phil’s suggestion. 

It’s hardly the first time he’s gotten off to the thought of Phil, Dan thinks as he pushes down his pants. And it probably won’t be the last either. 

He makes a quick and sloppy job of it, doing all the things he knows get him to his climax faster. 

And he thinks about Phil the whole time. The way he looked tonight. The ways he’s looked other nights, and in videos. Dan pieces it all together in his head, imagining Phil next to him, on top of him, touching him— 

When he comes he’s quick to grab the shirt he discarded earlier, wiping himself off the best he can before dropping the shirt onto the floor and switching off the lights. 

He can deal with the moral debate of wanking to his flirty friend in the morning. 

*

“So tomorrow…”

Dan’s heart races. They’d kind of danced around the topic all night. Talked about it without really talking about it. And now Dan can’t help but think that this is it. This is the moment where Phil tells him to fuck off, that it’s all been some elaborate prank to lead him on. Some kind of experiment to see how far he could get with the first desperate boy on the internet. 

“Tomorrow... what?” Dan finally chokes out. 

“I’m excited. Nervous? Maybe more excited.” Phil laughs like he’s uncomfortable and looks down at his nails. “To meet you. Finally.” 

“Yeah. Finally.” He smiles, leaning back against his pillows. 

He’s been trying to keep himself together all day. It hadn’t worked very well between the ridiculously giddy highs of what’s to come tomorrow and the lows of... everything else, really. Especially the possibility of what could make everything he’s looking forward to tomorrow _not_ come. 

It’s been so long, though. And Phil hasn’t ditched him yet. Hasn’t told him anything horrible about him, hasn’t even...tried to get rid of him. He’s listened, laughed, gave him a shoulder to cry and whine on when everything turned to shit several times. He’s been Dan’s best friend, the only person he feels like he could turn to and not be judged by. 

Dan’s scared it’ll end. He’s scared that Phil won’t like real life Dan like he likes online Dan. But maybe that’s his own fault for trying to seem so much cooler online. But then again...if he hadn’t done that, he’s not sure he would be talking to Phil now, let alone meeting him in a little over twelve hours. 

But through that, Dan thinks he’s also been _Phil’s_ best friend. And that maybe he needed one too because even though he’s finished two full degrees, he seems to be as lost as Dan is with his future. Because sometimes his parents say things that upset him without them meaning to, and that it gets worse because he loves them and they come from a place of love when they say those things to him, and to Phil that’s more painful than what they’re actually saying. And sometimes Phil just needs to laugh or watch Dan play games when he gets home from work.

He’s terrified of what could happen tomorrow, but a small, loud and hopeful part of him tells him it’s going to be better. That Phil’s a bit of a flirt but maybe that’ll go somewhere when he gets to Manchester. That actually being with your best friend is better than being with them through ones and zeros. 

“Hey! Earth to Dan! ...Dan?” Phil’s voice calls out to him from his laptop’s shitty speakers. 

“What?” 

“You zoned out there...did you hear anything I was just saying?” 

“Um.” 

“Dan! Rude.” Phil pouts. 

“Sorry, just a lot on my mind.”

“Yeah? Like what?” 

Dan hesitates. He doesn’t want to come off so strong but, well, fuck it. “Tomorrow.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Phil fixes his fringe, carefully laying it down in a way Dan’s become so familiar with. “Me too.” 

“I did mean what I said. About being excited.” Phil bites his lip as he continues. “‘Cause I can’t really wait to meet you. Feels like it’s overdue.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” They’re smiling at each other now, and for what he assumes must be the millionth time now, Dan wishes he could reach through the screen to Phil. 

“But I should let you sleep. You should sleep.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Dan whispers. “Is that weird?”

“No.” Phil’s tone matches his own. “No, I don’t think I can either.” 

“You should try to, though,” He feels a pang of disappointment in his chest at Phil’s words. “I have to clean my room too, it’s a tip.” 

“I could watch you,” Dan offers, ignoring the voice in his head chastising him for being so obviously needy. “Until I fall asleep, I mean.” 

“You don’t need to do that Dan,” he sits up straighter, softly clearing his throat. “‘Sides, this time tomorrow you’ll be here. With me. We’ll be together. In the flesh.” 

Dan can tell he’s nervous. He thinks it’s probably a good sign, good enough that he won’t abandon the idea of meeting Dan. At least, he hopes. And secretly, Dan’s glad he’s not the only one who’s nervous. It makes him feel less like a kid trying to play adult. 

“You’re right,” he says. “I should sleep anyway too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow then? Er, see you tomorrow then I guess. Both, actually.” 

_Dan you utter plank_. 

Thankfully, Phil doesn’t seem to mind. 

“Yeah,” Phil says, grinning widely. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Finally.” 

“Finally.” 

“Night Dan.” 

Dan smiles and ends the call after wishing him good night. He closes his laptop and pushes it to the side, grinning like an idiot into his pillow and taking comfort in the idea that in twenty-four hours he’ll be with Phil. For real.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from “Six Billion” by Nothing But Thieves 
> 
> you can like/reblog this on [tumblr](https://obsessivelymoody.tumblr.com/post/181463345432/if-its-enough-rating-t-word-count-71k-summary) if you want.


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